For 12/24/08: Merry Christmas Eve. Look for areas of partly sunny conditions this morning and colder temperatures but when the wind starts to blow it will be feeding some significant moisture into the area. We have entered a gap between pacific systems with clear cold conditions this morning opening up for cloud cover on the front end of this next system. We are seeing a classic one two punch developing that will first come as a warmer wave from the south through tonight and tomorrow morning only to be followed up by a colder northern system that will offer snow into Friday.

Temperatures will be the key to the best snow production with the cold lows of -10 in Crested Butte and -12 degrees in Gunnison rebounding slowly to the high teens today. This will interact with the first warmer southern system tonight offering high gusting winds and heavy snow as the fronts shift. Look for a warmer overnight low tonight of right around 10 degrees with highs tomorrow getting into the 20’s. Expect wind to offer some colder windchill values so stay bundled up.

These are complicated but good dynamics that have panned out for us already this year so look for a swing at significant amounts of new snow by Friday afternoon. As always variables exist in the more dynamic systems so do that snow dance but it’s looking like it will be a rough trip for Santa tonight with a very white Christmas developing.

Look for a complete Crested Butte and Gunnison weather report, 24 hour trends and real time weather information now available at WWW.CBTV.TV.